Marionette
by Quidell
Summary: (SI/OC)I've always lived as the onlooker of a play I never wanted to be a part of, watching the spectacle as a member of the audience. But now that I find myself participating in the very thing I've avoided all my life, I'm incapable of deciphering if I play the role of the Skeptic or the role of the Fool. Eventual romance!
1. Papercut

_I am your novelist._

The words echoed around and through my state of _mind_ and _body_. All I could do was watch. All I could do was listen. It was all I could do. It was all I could remember to do.

 _My characters have fallen into the vulgar mistake of dreaming. But what is vulgar if not refinement? What is a mistake if not understanding? They live in a dream, but only few can actually see such dream. I do not - cannot understand what I believe is superficial seeing, and yet I am here. Wondering and waiting._

The head moved, showing an angle of new stars that laid awake on its infinite abyss of a body. Or was I gazing upon the galaxy itself?

 _I will wait no longer. I am - tired. You, my character, retained a spirit of infancy even into the era of adulthood. I understand you. My eyes, my heart. We are intertwined by fate and purpose. I want - need to understand._

 _To learn._

 _To believe._

 _You are my vessel._

 _My end._

 _My future._

 _We are of the same mind, living and seeing within both heaven and hell._

 _Now go._

And I left.

…

Ralph Waldo Emerson would be proud to know I momentarily became a physical representation of his philosophical metaphor of a transparent eyeball.

That experience felt like an eternity had passed, albeit I remembered it with pristine clarity.

I'm pretty sure I was born right after that metaphoric lunacy.

And what I mean by _pretty-sure_ is that I was stuck in a dark tunnel with only my mind present, but I could somehow see a glimmer of light shimmering at the end. Voices echoed through my tunnel and at first, I couldn't comprehend what was being said. Everything I heard was muffled, and when I strained to hear what was spoken, I would grow tired, and then I would fall asleep, and when I awoke again, I was in the same tunnel with everything on repeat.

I cried and cried and cried. And then I would stop when I'd felt warmth envelope me. It made me feel safe; it made me feel like I was no longer alone anymore.

And when that warmth tried to leave me I'd clutch to it with all my might, and sometimes it would stay, sometimes it would leave. Sometimes I would cry, more so than not I would stay silent.

But after waking anew after so many repeats, a word finally found its way through the opening of my tunnel, and I rejoiced when I understood it:

" _...ve-da…"_

It was a name, and it took more new awakenings before I was able to hear more.

" _...Veda…"_

" _...sweet...Veda…"_

" _My...sweet...Veda…"_

" _My...precious Veda…"_

" _My beautiful...baby girl…"_

" _You are my...my only...you make me…"_

Mother?

And then I blinked.

It was like looking through a frosted window. Somehow, someway, I found myself further down my tunnel, near the end, near the opening. So close and yet so far away. But now I could see. Through the opening of the tunnel, through the foggy glass-like barrier, I could just make out a figure hunched over the tunnel. Large in comparison to the opening, and the harder I looked, the clearer the image became until I was finally gazing upon a woman who smiled down through the tunnel with adoration and love that it had me in an unfamiliar state of bewilderment and awe. She was so beautiful with bright yellow hair and hazel eyes and a heart shaped face that tapered down to a small pointed chin and a dazzling smile.

I couldn't help but stare, feeling the familiar warmth that kept that darkness away enveloped my very being, bringing a sense of want and happiness as well as a feeling of belonging.

"My sweet little angel," said the woman, the same voice that I'd heard earlier. "My sweet little Veda. You're getting so big." And her voice! Her voice sang through me, bringing a fit of passion to take rise through me that I felt it explode all my senses in one fell-swoop of complete and utter joy.

That was when I heard a giggle. A laugh so pure that if I could still feel my body, I would be on my knees in pure and utter happiness.

The giggle happened all around me, ricocheting off the darkness and surrounding me in everything it stood for.

And then I remembered.

It didn't come in a flood of panic or trepidation nor did it bring a sense of overwhelming comprehension, or a cataclysm of pain. One minute I didn't know anything and the next I remembered everything.

That my name wasn't Veda, it was Lill. And that I was a twenty-five-year-old woman that taught High School Computer Science and owned a little house with a white picket fence and a dog named Skip, and every Saturday I would hang out with my friends at some random restaurant and talk the night away, and that every night I would go to the gym and work on my kickboxing with my coach/boyfriend to keep in shape, and that-

And what I was looking through wasn't a tunnel that had a fog-like glass window. I was looking through the eyes of an infant.

I - was a baby.

Did I die?


	2. Parasite

**Chapter Two: Parasite**

I was almost one-hundred percent certain - without much doubt - that the father of the baby I was stuck inside was Satan himself.

He had _horns_.

Freakin' _horns_!

They were big, brown, ram-like horns that curled over the top on both sides of his head where they spiral halfway down the slope of his cranium and prematurely stop just before hitting the spinal cord of his neck, effectively freaking me the heck out when I first laid eyes on him. The first time I saw him through the opening of these infant's eyes, I eternally screamed. Then the baby that my consciousness was stuck inside started to cry.

It was biologically impossible, anatomically inconceivable, to have horns as large and as bulking as this guy was sporting. Now, I was never a very religious person, and despite my most recent circumstances that had me stuck inside the subconscious of an infant child, I found myself earnestly believing that this man with bright eyes and a heart-warming smile that was carefully holding the aforementioned baby in a kitchen in his cradling arms, probably about to feed the kid, while cooing words of love and adoration - was undoubtedly bent on world domination.

It was the only logical explanation I could come up with in my crap-filled situation I'd somehow found myself in.

"Who's my star child sent straight from heaven? You are! You are my sweet little Veda."

The baby cried.

The crying was mostly in part due to my influence over the child's emotions. Even though the child couldn't incontrovertibly comprehend my matured emotions at a fundamental level due to little advancement in brain activity that would conspicuously come with age (obviously), she could feel the purest forms of anger, sadness, _fear_ and happiness that emanated from me. With that said, once in a great while the baby's emotions filtered through to my own subconscious, competently eradicating my own emotions and replacing my most seasoned emotions with her innocently uncomplicated ones. Especially when the mother was around, the elation that radiated from the baby could not be trumped by anything I may have had been feeling at the time. It was too pure. But I also hadn't tried to push the child's emotions away when that feeling would encompassed the both of us. It was a feeling I could easily drown myself in and I'd allowed it to do just that whenever the occurrence came about. Which was often.

When I first came to true consciousness - and by true I mean when I regained all my memories - I was too stunned to feel much of anything. Like I had mentioned before, I was never religious. I wasn't an atheist either, I entertained the idea that there may have been an afterlife and all that jazz, but I'd never let myself think too deeply into the matter, so I'd never got past the ' _if'_ and ' _may'_. If I'd died and I'd ceased to exist then so be it. However, I'd never got further than that.

Now ... now I didn't know what to think.

Was this punishment for not believing a God - a higher power? For not living a life of strict faithfulness and belief; governing myself to ritualistic observances of faith?

Was I to live the actual vocation of mortal damnation, forced to watch a life of another while residing only in the subconscious without anyone knowing I was there? No longer influencing the world around me but forever shackled and condemned to watch through the eyes of another?

I didn't know how to act or how to properly react, to the situation I was in. I was at a loss of - everything. All I could do was watch.

And watch I did.

But as the days passed, the more I started to _feel_.

"What did you do now, Hisoka?"

The mother's voice filtered through all the hysterical crying, and the father's concerned yet pleading face pivoted up in the direction the sweet but teasing voice came from.

The father's bottom lip jutted out, displaying an overly exaggerated pout, his pupils expanding with wryness but animated when they fell on his wife's approaching form. One thing I noticed in this world I forcibly watched from the sidelines, everything was way too exaggerated - even when it came to the actual physical features of the father and mother and the other people I'd only occasionally seen: everyone's eyes were way too big, too expressive.

They all looked like real life cartoon characters.

And, I think the father was Asian (his name certainly was Asian, but we still all spoke in English)? It was hard to tell, but his skin-tone was more of a yellow-tan to light-peach you'd see in East and Northern Asians, but his eyes were huge though slightly slanted….

...and maroon.

A dark red/purplish color that could only derive from a place far, far below the earth's surface in the very pits of hate and bloodlust and...

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong, Rose. I'm holding her exactly like Doctor Perry"-Doctor Perry was a purple haired demon, too, with sharp manic teeth that I hated with a deep rooted passion-"Instructed me too and she still cries!" the father whined, tears sticking to the corner of his eyes. His eyes sought mine/the babies with a plea for mercy, mock tears streaming down his face.

Like I said: over exaggerated and a complete and utter farce.

A slender pale hand came into view that took hold of the father's shoulder, and behind his shoulder popped the mother as she looked down at the child and me with her warm, hazel eyes that always had me pausing in my endless internal thoughts. That familiar warmth enveloped me and the child giggled in unadulterated happiness that I soaked in like a dry sponge.

"See, she's laughing. You're just being a big baby." She pinched the father's cheek making him pout even more. The mother walked around his side so she could peer down at her child while still maintaining a grip on the father's shoulder. Then, she laid her head against his shoulder and ran her hand behind his back to his other side in a half hug.

"She's so perfect," the mother sighed her adoration, her eyes the ever glowing honey-dew I always see her don when looking upon her child.

And me.

This woman was beautiful, through and through.

She must have been tricked to marry this demon.

"So perfect that she hates her low-life father," the father, Hisoka, pouted yet again, jutting his lip out in his over exaggeration of a sullen look.

What a princess.

How does Rose _not_ see that this thing was a total fake!

"You're not ' _low-life',_ idiot," the mother, Rose, teased while pinching his nose. "Stop saying that, especially in front of the baby." So said the woman who called her husband an idiot in front of said daughter.

She smoothed her pinching hand over his chest, flattening the wrinkles out of his blue collared shirt. "Keep it up and her first words will be ' _low-life_ '."

"Then why else would she cry every time I hold her without you around? It's like she scared of me or something."

Understatement of the year goes to: Hisoka, the wretched father-demon!

Rose reached up with her pinching hand and stroked the little scruff on Hisoka's chin while leaning forward to run her cheek against that very scruff. "Yes, you're so scary, you'd make for an excellent villain, honey."

"That's not very nice, even if you are playing around." His face suddenly became rather serious, something I never seen him wear before and it had me a little surprised, to say the least. So much so that I reigned in the difference with a critical eye. "You know how I feel about _that_."

And what was ' _that'_ he was speaking of? He'd never mentioned a ' _that'_ the two months of my true consciousness.

Rose turned her head and pecked his cheek, both in comfort and a request for forgiveness. "But honey, your ravishing skills could-" She continued that sentence by whispering into his ear and Hisoka's serious frown turned to a wicked grin instantaneously.

I internally blushed at the implications and the baby grew deathly silent, watching the exchange with innocent, unschooled eyes..

"Well," Hisoka replied with smugness in his tone that had me slightly mortified in what was to come, "in that case go ahead and call me a villain all you want." He let out a small laugh then continued a little more quietly, probably taking into account that he was holding his daughter and what he was about to speak was something no child should hear from their parents, and that included me, "But only in the bedroom and only while I'm-"

Rose hit him hard in the chest while laughing, much to my thankful embarrassed horror at hearing _that_. "Not in front of Veda!"

Hisoka snorted. "Not like she can understand me, we can talk about sex all we want and-"

Another smack, but this time harder. "Stop it! I don't want her to catch any of your weird perverted tendencies!"

"Perverted? You're the one who who mentioned the bedroom first!"

"But I was quiet about it!"

I watched the exchange with amusement, albeit with hesitation about hearing anymore bedroom talk, watching as Rose showered her husband with playful affection and how Hisoka returned with just as much fervor. In its own way, seeing this was heartwarming. It made my bleak existence a little more meaningful; it was a welcoming distraction.

Even if Hisoka was most likely the deceiver of humans and meant to bring us all astray to eternal damnation (much worse than what I was going through) - it was still a rather heartwarming sight, even if it was a mockery of the real thing.

And it was all so familiar.

 _Jason_.

My last moments I remembered before I found myself in this strange world was with Jason. Those last few instances that I could still remember I would never forgot.

How could I forget? He did ask me to marry him that very night…

 _The moonless sky sparkled with an array of stars that lite up the night sky like motionless fireworks. The constant flickering of the stars had me believing in my younger years that they were dancing; showing off to anyone who had the pleasure to look upon them in their nightly ventures._

 _A meteorite shower was predicted to hit the earth's atmosphere that night and any time a streak of a shooting star blinked across the night sky, the hand holding my trembling fingers squeezed lightly, reminding me time and time again that I wasn't alone._

 _That I was never going to be alone ever again._

 _I couldn't remember ever being this happy before._

 _When another shooting star streaked across the sky I let out a sigh of comfort, smiling at how perfect I felt at that very moment._

 _I felt the blankets shift underneath me and I looked to the right to see the man I loved on his side, staring at me with a gentle smile on his cleanly shaved face. His blue eyes dance with mirth as he regarded me with a smile that had me returning the gesture with just as much enthusiasm. "Tell me, Lily, what are you thinking right now?" When I opened my mouth to speak, he gently ran his large hand over my cheek and slid his thumb over my lips before I could say a single word. "The truth, Lill. I want to know what's truly on your mind."_

 _He pushed his thumb against my lips, flattening them and wetting his pad before he slid it away and laid it flat against the curve of my chin._

 _He knew me so well._

 _My smile warmed as I turned a little so I was halfway facing him, now lying on my trembling arm. "Nothing special," I teased. "Just thinking about how perfect everything is." And it was the truth. He made me feel loved. He made me feel-_

 _"I feel at home," I admitted. "I don't want this moment to end. I"-I wetted my lips, looking straight into his baby-blues so he could see what I was about to say was indeed the truth; was my very heart speaking for me. "I love you, Jason." Tears of my own happiness sprang to my eyes, leaving a trail of the shared joy he brought into my life that I would forever be indebted for. "You are my villa, Jason."_

 _Those very words meant the world to me, and if I said that to anyone else it would sound outlandishly ridiculous, but I knew Jason would get what I was trying to convey. He always had a knack for understanding my most comical ways of phrasing my true feelings for him or at any given situation, really._

 _After everything I'd been through, I'd never spoke words truer than what I had just spoken then._

 _I had a hard time admitting how I truly felt in most circumstances, even to this man that I loved dearly. My - mother was forced to put me up for adoption at a young age and I grew up under the system until I'd turned eighteen, so when you hardly interacted with grown-ups that had more stable emotions while growing up, your own emotions become stumped. Unlike most kids that grew up under the same lifestyle as me, I didn't resort to drugs or alcohol to fill in that gap of loneliness and to dull my own self resentment. I'd sought to better my education and put all my time and energy into bettering my life and making goals I knew I could accomplish if I'd just put a little bit of that elbow grease most adults talked about in their retirement years._

 _Growing up under the system, you didn't have a lot of free rain of expressing how you truly felt, so when I'd accepted to be this man's girlfriend, I'd held great trepidation inside myself as well as my heart._

 _To put it simply: I was afraid._

 _I was afraid that I wasn't capable of giving the love and devotion that made up a healthy relationship. I was frightened that my own self-doubts and insecurities would push Jason away after I'd grown to love him, leaving me alone to dwell on the what-ifs after all was said and done._

 _I'd seen so many of my friends fall into that rhythm of what-ifs that I'd learned from their own mistakes and made sure that I wouldn't succumb to the same fate._

 _But when push came to shove, or the undeniable force of never giving up that was now my boyfriend, I'd finally said yes. And what an adventure it had been since then. He'd made sure that I knew how deeply he'd cared for me, and he'd gave me time to grow accustomed to the new lifestyle he'd presented me with. Soon enough, with every loving new obstacle he had me endure, it no longer came as a surprise to me. I'd easily grew accustomed to the new lifestyle only he could have ever had shown me and it'd only made me love him even more with each passing day._

 _His smile only showed the love I held deep in my heart with each passing day and minute for this man. "I've waited a long time for you to say that," he, himself, admitted, before I felt him shift, lifting his right hand to show me a little black box he now held between our bodies. "And now that you admitted to the feelings I've harbored for so long I can finally ask you this one simple question, Lily"-he opened the box, and inside the velvet clad box held a single diamond ring atop of a beautiful platinum band-"Will you marry me?"_

 _I didn't even hesitate when I answered him with fresh tears streaming down my face. "Of course I will, Jason Thompson!"_

 _And then we made love under the shining, shooting stars and that night I will forever remember it being the happiest night I would ever endure._

But after that… well… I was with that… thing… That thing I thought was the galaxy itself and its entirety.

I thought a lot about what that thing said to me. _I am your novelist._ _My characters - intertwined by fate and purpose - you are my vessel._

You are my vessel.

My vessel.

...

He was watching me.

Or he was inside my own subconscious like how I was inside the child's. Watching. Waiting. Feeling everything that I felt. Hearing everything that I was thinking.

Judging my every thought.

A subconscious inside a subconscious.

If that were true, this was one messed up version of Inception. Was my spinning top endlessly spinning? Unable to break free and send me back to the reality I'd once come from? Back to Jason...

Or was this all just a dream? An endless loop that I would eventually break free and would simply just wake up?

That thought alone was tantalizing, but I knew I was only trying to fool myself. To make my unendurable reality more bearable.

Or maybe this was my own version of King Sisyphus most maddening eternal punishment, to endlessly watch in the shadows of another life and when the tantalizing hope of escape would come to the surface, be pushed further into my tunnel to stand watch over another life, unable to do anything but observe for all of the years this life would live.

And once she dies, what then?

If this life I resided in died - would I resume my life back with Jason? Or would I move on to another subconscious, forever intertwined with rebirth into a new life.

And then there was another question I only asked myself once, but when the thought arises, it scared me so much so that the child started to cry even while the mother held her in her arms. Not even the warmth helped in the momentary weakness that beseeched me as well as the child herself.

 _Why did I accept this reality?_

Other than the utter sadness that I probably won't see Jason ever again, why _didn't_ I feel crushed? Feel an all consuming hatred for the life I was now forced to undergo for however long some messed up deity wanted me to endure?

Or is this what people called being in shock?

I did not hold any resentment to the child or to the parents that loved that child and brought her, and subsequently me, into this world. I did not begrudge that thing that left me in that tunnel when he dismissed me into a void of nothingness. I did not care that I couldn't feel any part of my body nor anything like a gentle touch or the soft caress of a breeze other than the pleasing warmth the mother resonated when she held her little girl.

I just didn't care.

Or I was in too much shock to fathom a care.

At the time, I couldn't comprehend what that said about my character.

So, I stopped thinking about the whys and consequently wondering about my sanity with a bit of hysteria and focused on the present reality instead, effectively distracting my wandering thoughts before irrational delirium became a relevant problem.

And watched I did.

A week later, I discovered more about this world than what I ever thought was humanly possible, and it shed a new light on the father of this child I subconsciously knew was the truth but never entertained the thought due to my own irrational fear. To say I was ever frightened of him had me feeling a tad bit of shame and embarrassment that I instinctively thought the worst of someone based on looks alone.

I was wrong; I'll admit that.

This was the first time I was ever on a walk outside the house that didn't involve being hurriedly strapped into a car seat and taken to that weirdo doctor! I was actually going for a walk - or push since this kid wasn't close to being a one-year-old yet and walking wasn't even an option when this kid couldn't even drag her own butt across the ground as of yet.

So, being pushed in a stroller was the next big thing! Granted, my excitement was a little overly-exaggerated considering that going for a walk wasn't anything mind-boggling, but when you'd been cooped up inside a house with overbearing parents while in my position, going out for the first time in over two months was an achievement that had my nerves burning with enthused incitement.

Of course, the parents fussed over if I- I mean the kid - should wear a jacket or not considering there was a breeze outside and were tentatively wondering if the kid would get cold or not. Caring parents. All I could say about that. But after Hisoka finally tightened the last strap around the pudgy body of the infant, he smiled at her and cooed at her bubble-making.

"Are you making bubbles, my sweet little Veda?" When the infant continued to make even more bubbles in response, he gushed even more that I was now drowning in his ever endearing fatherly nature. He reached inside the stroller and gently pinched his kids' cheeks, giving me a clear view on his black punisher shirt.

So, comics existed in this world?

"You're so adorable I could just gobble you up!"

Please don't. Oh, please God don't...

"Is she all set?"

And the mother to the rescue!

"She sure is! Come look at how cute she looks in her cute little Barney jacket."

Wait, there was a Barney in this world, too!?

My mother head popped into view, her golden locks falling down her face and near the kid's little feet and over her blue sweater clad shoulder that only accented her beautiful blonde hair. The child instantly giggled and I easily soaked in the warmth the mom emitted.

Both parents gushed at how cute their kid was, once again congratulating each other on how perfect they made her and just how perfect she was in general. You know, the usual parent talk.

To tell you the truth, there was only so much gushing I could handle, and I was pretty sure my bucket was almost full of the sticky, gooey substance and was on the brink of overflowing.

Finally, we were off, after they checked my straps for the fifteenth time before leaving.

The father pushed me and the mother walked by his side while holding tightly to his arm, and with them walking in the back, I had a grandiose view of everything that came my way with no limitations.

And what a grandiose view it was.

The baby screamed when the first kid that walked past had menacing dark bat wings that had me balking in fear.

And when another walked past my stroller and had an actual fish head.

You read that right: he had an actual head that looked exactly like a fish - carp, to be specific.

The mother would try to calm me down by walking backward in front of the stroller, and it worked for a good amount of time that she would resume walking next to the father behind the stroller and out of my view, but then something else would freak me out and the kid would start to scream again...

"Maybe we should go back," Rose suggested.

I tried to agree with her but all the kid did was fart.

The only logical explanation of this world was that I somehow wound up in the future where hell now walked the earth...

"But we just got started? Just give her a little time, she's just not used to seeing all these new faces."

"It's all these new faces that has me worried. Have you noticed that she only cries when the ones with physical Quirks walks into her view."

...What's a quirk?

Hisoka paused. "You're right." He finally realized after a beat. "Maybe that's why she's so scared of me? She's scared of my horns?"

"Probably."

Wow. Savage.

I was still having a hard time understanding what a _Quirk_ was. Could they not be so vague, please?

"That hurts, Rose. That really hurts."

She laughed softly. "She doesn't understand what she's seeing, Hisoka, she's only a baby. You're over thinking things again. You need to remember that I had her in my stomach for nine months and in those nine months she recognized my voice even before birth. And when she finally came into this world and seen me for the first time, she naturally latched onto me. The way I look, even if it's a little blurry, and to the way I smell. She also probably associates me to her feedings, too." She chuckled at that. "Her instincts are purely juvenile, when she grows older she'll love you just as much as I do."

"But I don't want to wait till she's older!" Hisoka whined, like usual. "I want her to love me now!"

Rose giggled again at Hisoka's expense, probably resulting in another overly abundant pout from him. "Give her time. She will. You just have to trust me."

There was a slight pause before Hisoka said, "Are you sure it isn't my horns?"

"I'm absolutely positive."

Positively wrong.

I guess that old saying about moms always being right wasn't, well, right.

But, how would she know any better? I mean, it probably wasn't common that their child harbored a soul from another universe after all.

Or maybe it was. Maybe everyone had someone like me inside them?

Well, that was a creepy thought.

"Besides," Rose continued, "even if she was scared of your horns she'll have one rude awakening in a year or so." She chuckled.

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

We stopped moving and Rose came into view to the right of me with Hisoka following soon after on the left. Rose reached forward and swept-what I assumed-the baby bangs away from her forehead.

"See." Rose smiled while retracting her hand, giving me the view of her glorious motherly smile with the father standing next to her, his hand on his knees and was giving me his usual confused stupefied look. "She has her father's horns, too."

The father's eyes grew wide and then the baby started to scream.

She was screaming because I was projecting my own horrified fear onto her with no control on my part.

I was the _antichrist_ …

 _Oh God, Oh God, OHMIGOSH!_

"Shh, honey, it's okay, you're okay," Rose cooed as she stroked the baby's left cheek, showcasing her motherly smile once again. It started to work when the baby cries died down, and all that was left was the warmth from the mother and a couple of snotty sniffles.

"She has snot running down her chin," Hisoka drawled, staring at the snot as it made its way down. "You should, uh, probably clean that up."

And out of the mothers pocket, she pulled out a small rag and handed it to Hisoka. "Here you go, sweety."

 _I'm the antichrist!?_

"What? No way!" A look of disgust crossed his face as he stood up at his full height with his arms crossed. "We agreed that I wouldn't have to deal with her boogers unless I absolutely needed to!"

The mother sighed in clear exasperation, her face showing mock annoyance. "You're such a baby sometimes. It's your daughter's boogers, they contain the same gooey substance yours does, nothing new or more diabolical than your own."

"They're boogers, Rose. Mucus mixed with everything that she breaths in through the air, and then more mucus. And then some more mucus after that. Green mucus. Green disgusting mucus. Why do babies boogers have to be so… so… green?"

I was still too horrified to comprehend that Satan was troubled by boogers, apparently.

Rose finally reached into the stroller and whipped up the mucus her kid managed to get all over her. "We get it already: you don't like boogers. You're such a baby sometimes, you know that? It shouldn't matter when it comes to your child, Hisoka."

"It does matter. Mucus matters. Green, disgusting mucus matters, Rose."

"Baby."

The father didn't reply with a pout like he normally would, but I didn't really notice at that moment because I was having an eternal screaming conniption with the revelation that I'd have to witness this kid devouring the souls of the living when she grew older...

"All set. Good as new," Rose cooed. She reached her head into the stroller and kissed her child's nose before retreating back out of the stroller with her warm, motherly smile. When she turned back to her husband, she finally noticed he had his arms still crossed and was staring at the ground with an intense look in his maroon eyes.

"Hisoka? Is there anything wrong?'

The father blinked out of his reverie and looked back up at his wife before giving a slow, yet small, smile. "It's nothing. Just thinking."

"Penny for your thoughts? And don't say it's nothing again. I know when something is bothering you, Hisoka. Just tell me what it is." She turned her mother charms on dear-old father.

Hisoka's eyes traveled to his kids, a flash of wistful resignation crossing through his maroon irises.

"I was kind of hoping she wouldn't get my Quirk."

I perked up when he said quirk. What did that mean?

"And what quirk were you hoping she'd get?"

The father shrugged. "Her own, I guess? A cool Quirk. One where she can become an awesome Hero with? ...I dunno." He shrugged again, then he turned his head and scanned his eyes away from his wife and kid as a look of thoughtful contempt overtook his features. "Maybe she could have gotten her great grandmother's Quirk."

He wasn't be specific on which side he was speaking of, but based on how Rose reacted, I could easily take a gander.

The mother visibly stiffened, her shoulder tensing from the verbal confession the father bestowed upon her. From both of their reactions, this line of thought had a troubled backstory that both parties were aware of, despite one being the actual barrier of said backstory-I was betting on Rose being the barrier-and it wasn't a story that could be easily swallowed in one sitting.

"That Quirk," she spoke slowly, accentuating each word with careful ease as if she was talking to a child that had done something terrible, "drove my grandmother to insanity. Why would you"-her hand flew up to her forehead where she laid it palm down in a sign of sudden distress-"why would you want your only daughter to go through the same torment that ultimately drove my grandmother to her death?" Rose sounded utterly horrified at the prospect that her husband would wish this Quirk thing upon his only daughter, something that even had me shocked into complete bewildered silence as I watched the spectacle continue.

I was too dumbfounded to make even one rational thought, to dissect what was being said with a critical mind.

My mind was momentarily overloaded with all the new information suddenly thwarted on my unexpecting mind that I almost didn't catch the next sequence of their conversation.

"That's because she didn't seek any counseling for her Quirk," the father reasoned, now staring at Rose with a analytical eye. "If she had someone guiding her I bet-"

"No!" Rose bellowed, making a couple of kids look in their general direction from the sudden outburst. It even had me flinching from the intensity of it. "She's perfect the way she is, Hisoka! Having your Quirk is a blessing. Why would you want our daughter to become a hero and to have a Quirk like my grandmothers that could potentially lead to her going insane? Just like grandma? Why would you wish that upon your own daughter!? You saw how grandma was before she passed! She was insane; talking nonsense and threatening anyone who came near her, even me! The granddaughter she loved with all her heart when she was still sane! Why would you wish that, Hisoka? What are you-"

Before she could finish her distraught tirade, Hisoka had his arm around her, holding her close to his chest as she let out a strangled sob. She was crying, and to hear her let out small whimpers of distress left me speechless beyond compare. I didn't know what to think.

"Shh, it's okay Rose, sweety, it's okay. I'm sorry, so, so sorry," the father beseeched, the emotional toll of her outburst clearly heard in his softly spoken words. "I wasn't thinking. I know and am sorry. I won't mention it again. I swear. It won't happen again. I didn't mean to sound so heartless."

I could only see a side view of their position, and at the angle of the stroller I had a hard time making out the father's face, but Rose's eyes, I could see tears streaming down her cheeks as she clutched to Hisoka, easily forgiving him for his earlier confession. To see such an emotional response from the two had me coming out of my earlier reverie as I watched the two hold each other with such passion and emotion.

To say that I was finally seeing the bigger picture was an understatement.

I still couldn't fully grasp what they meant by a _Quirk_ , but I was starting to understand the fundamentals behind the word. From what I could gander, a _Quirk_ was an extra something someone had. From what Rose said earlier about the child being afraid of physical _Quirks_ , it was easier for me to deduce that _Quirks_ were something extra this world had against my own, like extra abilities or something along those lines.

And that my father had a _Quirk_ that gave him horns and maroon eyes? Which made me take back my earlier statement-to a certain degree-that the father was actually Satan bent on world domination, but a father who had a _Quirk_ that gave him the appearance of evil incarnate itself.

...okay, now I felt bad for making the baby cry every time he came within the vicinity of what I could see. No loving father deserved that treatment I forced onto him from his own baby girl. But could I really blame myself for the way I acted? Or was I being selfish for trying to rectify my subtly horrendous actions in a way that would only make my psych feel better by allowing my pride to take a substantial hit?

I should have guessed as much, however, when I kept happening upon these unusual people. Instead, I thought the worst. I wasn't one-hundred percent sure that I was right in the first place, but hearing Rose's and Hisoka's conversation did make sense, to a certain extent; or I was just trying to make an excuse again by finding any reasoning to shed a mending light on my otherwise bleak and selfish thought process that resulted in a temporary anguish for someone not deserving of such treatment.

I felt like a little monster. And for the first time since my true consciousness, I truly felt like a parasite.

* * *

 **Author's Note: 5 reviews, 7 favs, and 24 alerts!**

 **I want to thank animagirl, 9thDimen, Eneflin7, SassySizzleMonster,** **and rhynnablue** **for the reviews that made me work on this chapter and get it to you as quickly as I possibly could!**


	3. No Strings Attached

_**Word count: 7,873**_

 _ **Published: September 25, 2017**_

 _ **Edited: slight edits done on August 18, 2018**_

 _ **Edited By: N/A**_

 _ **Playlist: Everything Ends Here by BlueLionsMusic (more so towards the end of chapter)**_

* * *

 _My hesitation only lasted a second before I stiffly rapped my shaking fist on the office door the gym receptionist lead me to when she signed me in for my five o'clock meeting. The hesitation on my part was uncalled for; pathetic. I needed this just as much as I needed food in my stomach and air in my lungs. I couldn't keep going forward with how things were operating now; I needed this change._

 _And my hesitation only strengthened my resolve._

 _I could do this._

 _My disease will not beat me!_

 _Not anymore._

 _A loud bang resounded behind the closed door after I knocked in rapped concession, followed closely by a well-timed curse._

 _"Uh," I started, my voice rising so I could be heard through the door, "is this a bad time? I can come back"-I faltered briefly as my thoughts ran through my evening's schedule out of habit, despite it not making a difference-"another time when you're . . . available." I lied, knowing full well I wouldn't come back if I happened to be turned away from an appointment I arrived to with only a minute to spare. That was just rude._

 _"Wait! Hold on . . . just . . . one . . . " he grunted loudly before another bang boomed behind his closed office door, jolting me away with a little hop of alarm. Slowly, I backed up, ready to hightail it out of there but before I could even turn and make a mad dash to the exit, the door finally opened, revealing a bare-chested, well-built (holy mother of abs!) man in gray sweats that hung loosely around his hips (and below chiseled, well-defined abs!), accenting the tone muscle that lie just beneath the scandalously low waistband (and more delicious abs!) and . . . purple sparkles decorating his sweat-clad blonde hair._

 _Besides the oddly placed purple sprinkles in his hair, the man before me was downright gorgeous, in a rouge boyish way, and here was I, my puggy self, ogling him like a fat dog in heat._

 _He was panting heavily as his bright blue eyes regarded me with cool interest, unaware of the sparkles twinkling in his hair and falling dramatically down the side of his soft yet angular jaw in wisps of rebellion that contrasted greatly with his calculative stare._

 _Or maybe he did know and just didn't care . . . or was into that sort of thing._

 _Unwarranted images popped into my mind of the things he may have been doing behind that closed door before I knocked, making me take a subconscious step back from the gorgeously tuned man._

 _And just like everyone else I'd ever met in the last five years, his gorgeous eyes zeroed in on my trembling hand that gripped my purse like a lifeline, only tightening my hold when his strong, angular jaw squared in understanding._

 _Or disgust . . ._

 _"Sorry about that," he finally said after a moment's pause, all business-like, "Lillith, right? Jason Thompson." He extended his right hand in a formal greeting. In return, I extended my left, meeting his eyes in a challenge while internally berating myself with how rude I was behaving._

 _"Nice to meet you, Mr. Thompson," I greeted formally in return, showing my respect when he switched hands without a moment's pause and shook with his left in greeting. "I hope I'm not early, I thought we had an appointment at five, so . . . here I am . . . " Not to mention that your receptionist even had me listed for five, too._

 _"No, you are correct." His eyes lightened with a sheepish air, the corners crinkling in embarrassment that only accented his boyish good looks. "We have a five o'clock appointment today, I just lost track of time. Thought I could get in a few more reps before you arrived." His eyes darted away from mine, glancing at the front desk. His embarrassed forgetfulness was kind of cute, in a way. It did explain why he was so sweaty, putting my mind at ease at the other possibilities my mind wandered to forbiddingly._

 _. . . I'm such a closet pervert._

 _It was oddly cute to see such a strong, tall, and handsome man look so pleasantly flustered. And with purple sparkles in his hair no less._

 _But while he looked away, my eyes unwittingly traveled down to his rock hard abs, and even further down to the V of his . . ._

 _Oh God, have mercy. Those should be illegal . . ._

 _A sudden fit of perverted coughing overtook my senses as I looked away from his godlike physique and back up to the safety of his eyes that were now, to my complete horror, regarding me with amused interest. My face burned with being caught ogling a complete stranger, and to my utter horror, I started spewing out the first thing that came to mind in a failed attempt to ease my burning embarrassment, "If my breasts were out like your irreligious abs, you'd have a hard time_ not _staring, too."_

 _Wait. What?_

 _What Did I Just Say!?_

 _He blinked. Then blinked again. Then he laughed. Hard. Almost doubling over from the effort that resulted in him loosening some of his purple sparkles in his hair. I watched them flutter to the ground in hopeless abandonment, finding I was too horrified and too petrified to even flee from this fiasco, to look him in the eyes. My trembling hand hardened, gripping my cheap purple bag like a lifeline._

" _Yeah. You're right," he finally got out. Now standing at his full height. I continued to stare at the purple sparkles on the ground, refusing to glance up at his cruelly amused face. "Let me go grab a shirt since you're having such a hard time concentrating with my 'irreligious abs' distracting you. Is that even a word?" he added, still chuckling._

 _It most certainly was a word, if he knew who John Allen Paulos was, he'd know that was, in fact, a word. But he wouldn't because: 1) he owned his own gym and his job didn't require him to study such things, and 2) he had abs like steel so that automatically gave him a pass in my books._

" _No, you're fine," I conceded, my face still burning with shame, "I'm just gonna go now and die in a back alley somewhere. Pretty sure being picked at by vultures would be less demeaning than me . . . still embarrassing myself because I don't know how to close my big fat mouth for the life of me without it slapping me in my face with . . . Okay, shutting up now and going."_

 _I turned away from my total embarrassment, but before I could take a step, Jason spoke up, "I'll admit that my usual appointments don't start off so . . . extravagant." He chuckled, ignoring my tyrant of exasperating words on a level totally inappropriate that sums up my life at a very basic level. "But that's my fault. I lost track of time and I apologize for my totally unprofessional first impression. Amateur. Ignorant. Inefficient. Whatever you want to call it." He paused, then continued, "Why is - why do I have sparkles in my hair?"_

 _I turned just in time to see the manager of this little establishment rubbing his hair with vigor as sprinkles rained from his hair. He looked down at his hands and grimaced when he saw them covered in the purple sprinkles as well as his broad, manly shoulders that I really needed to stop looking at right about then. "How in the . . . oh! Damn it! Marissa. Freakin' shelving . . . kid projects . . ." he finished while mumbling incoherent, incomplete sentences._

 _I smiled at his flustering, despite my overwhelming embarrassment. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, looking at me with now carefree eyes. "I think it's safe to assume we're even, right? How 'bout we start over?" He took a step forward, ignoring the purple sparkles that fell in his line of vision and extended his left hand to me. "Jason Thompson," he began again as he shook my good hand, "it's nice to meet you, Lillith Miller. How can I help you? I understand you're looking for a personal trainer, correct?"_

The first time I met Jason felt like ages ago. He was a conundrum all on his own. It didn't take long for me to fall for him. It wasn't love at first sight, but there was a spark, and it didn't have anything to do with his abs. That was just an added bonus.

Okay, I'll admit that the spark had ignited from those abs, but me falling for him was far more virtuous than a simple shallow obsession!

As the child played with her ABC blocks, it gave me time to think about that dream of a past memory I had last night about my first introduction to Jason. What an odd occurrence, I don't think I'd ever dreamt up a memory before . . .

And why did it have to be about Jason? And of all the memories I had to dream, it'd had to be the very one that I held dearly because it marked the first day of my changing for the better in more ways than one.

It was such a happy memory . . .

But now . . . it reminded me of everything that I forever lost.

Hisoka walked into the room with his usual flamboyant smile. He first made his way over to his kid and gave her a quick kiss on her head before bounding toward the TV to turn it on.

When I first came to true consciousness, Hisoka frightened me so much so that I couldn't get past his horns to appreciate how handsome he actually was. In fact, Hisoka was downright gorgeous. He definitely had a Ryan Reynolds roguish look going about him with a scruffy face and a strong jawline, but his maroon asian-angled eyes, that matched Veda's incidentally, were much bigger and expressive and not so close together. He was tall, probably reaching around six feet or more, but it was hard to tell his height when you're looking through the eyes of someone who barely reached a foot or two. He also had a very I-do-and-wear-what-I-want-and-I-don't-care-what-you-think aura about him.

And he had a knack of wearing loose sweatpants around the house, too, but thankfully he had the decency to wear a shirt. Despite Hisoka not being my own father, I still felt a little bit of indecency ogling the father of the kid I was stuck inside. Even though this wasn't my real body, Hisoka was still the father of this body and that is where I draw the line.

It was just wrong.

"Don't tell mommy that I'm letting you watch the news," he said before adding quietly right after, "or she'll kill me, flay me in that new _green_ health-kick butter and serve me as some freakish salad garnish."

This was a regular thing that happened every weekday: Mom goes off to work since she's the breadmaker of the family, and Daddy stays home with the kid and is a full-time Dadny, (Dad and Nanny combined). An hour after Mother leaves, dear old (or young since he's only twenty-four - which makes me older than him, as odd as that sounds) Dad turns on the news and we watch all the breaking stories happening throughout the day.

Hisoka got a kick out of watching these, showing a sportsmanship for all the Heroes that rivaled those of seasoned, overzealous football players in my world. It was quite amusing when one of the Heroes on TV would get their butts kicked, how Hisoka would watch in open despair, then perk back up when the Hero makes a triumphant comeback, shouting and whooping like he himself was there cheering the Hero on.

He was such a man-child; it was sort of adorable.

"-trapped inside the rubble," a woman's voice cut in when Hisoka turned the TV on and to the correct channel. "Robert Dilango is on the scene now."

The screen changed from the newswoman sitting in the newsroom to a scene that was covered in smoke, and reminded me of that time my old neighbors house burned down right next door to mine in my old world, with a little man hovering in the middle of it. He tried his best to cover his eyes from the smoke as he spoke to the camera. "Robert Dilango here at the scene of a devastating Villain attack that happened just under half an hour ago in downtown Allenpark. Behind me you will see" -the camera zoomed away from the little man, that looked relatively normal, and to a burning office building in the back. The building looked roughly three stories high and was about the size of an averagely sized Walmart-"NSA Corporation up in flames. Eyewitnesses believe a man by the name of Bill Harper was seen entering the building after his untimely dismissal from the company and is suspected to be the root cause of the earlier explosion. How he did it is still a mystery but from what the records of state Quirk registration suggest, he is a prime suspect of the earlier explosion. We currently have two Heroes on the scene: Hero Incenory and Hero Electric Shock, both are searching for any survivors within the inflamed building as I speak. Hero Hydro is on the way."

Heroes. Another anomaly this world had that mine didn't. At least, not in the abundance -or same function - as this world worked. It all reminded me of those comic-book Marvel movies I grew up with; except, they weren't as powerful as the fictitious Heroes from my childhood. Definitely, no nickel-titanium alloy flying suits or half-baked man-childs running around with their heads cut off while haphazardly saving us from some destructive and overpowering alien invasion.

Of course, my world had Heroes too that came in the form of firefighters, policemen, and the like. This world had these type of people too, but, from what I could tell from all the news Hisoka watched, they weren't credited as often, if at all, as the _professional_ Heroes were.

"Incenory and Electric Shock won't be of much use in this situation. They must have been the closest when this all went down, though," my father mumbled from the couch. "Hydro will be the key factor once he arrives. Wonder if that fu"-he glanced down at the kid and once he saw us staring back at him, ABC blocks momentarily forgotten, changed his wording at the last second-"Villain is still there."

He then smiled and stood up from the couch where he crouched and picked up the kid before returning to said couch to resume facing the television screen. He sat Veda and I on his lap and turned us so the kid was balancing on his knee and facing him. "You're never gonna become a Villain, got that fatty?"

That was uncalled for, and why would I ever become a bad guy - erm, the kid, I meant. As long as the home she grows up in stays the way it is, she'll become a relatively normal adult, with relatively normal ideals.

Also, for the record, Veda was a complete ball of baby fat, so calling her fatty without the aforementioned baby in front of the fat, was downright cruel and mean.

I won't forget that comment, dear old daddy.

"What am I even saying?" He chuckled. Reaching up, he lightly pinched the kid's cheek. "You're too cute to become a Villain. I mean, look at these fat cheeks! So fat, so chubby, so perfect!"

Please. Stop gushing your fatherly love in my general direction! It was too much! Seriously, I should have an off switch so I don't have to endure all this.

His eyes swiveled back to the TV momentarily before giving me his full attention again. "Glad you're not crying anymore every time I hold you. That made daddy really, really sad."

My bad. Still felt bad for that, even if that was more than eight months ago since the kid cried over my irrational fears; the wound was still fresh on my conscious.

And him mentioning it over and over again didn't help any.

"Do you know what will make daddy really, really happy?"

The kid farted.

"If you say daddy or dada. Say Dada, Veda. Da-da. That's an easy one, right?" He repeated Dada a couple of times, but the only response he got was the kid's impenetrable blank stare.

Probably drooling too, but since I couldn't feel anything the kid felt, I could only imagine.

Did kids start speaking at fifteen months?

Plus, wouldn't the appropriate first words for a child be mama? Since she carried the kid for nine months, you'd think she'd at least get the privilege of the kid's first words being 'mama'. But, that probably won't be the case in this situation considering the father taking on the nurturing role while the mother made the dough.

"Come on, Veda! You're gonna make daddy cry again."

Little droplets of tears accumulated in his corner tear ducts, stacking truth on his innocent threat. He was such a princess. Admittedly, though, it was kind of adorable.

Again, the kid strangely stared blankly into his matching maroon eyes, not once attempting to repeat what he was saying. Hisoka's head dropped in mock defeat. Little sniffles heard over his failure. "You're so cruel, Veda. So cruel to daddy."

Give her time, Hisoka. She'd speak eventually.

At least, I had hoped.

"Hydra has made it to the scene!" The voice of the reporter on the scene boomed over Hisoka's moping, effectively bringing him out of his brooding and back to the action broadcasting on the news.

"He's redirecting all of the underground water systems and directing it toward the flames!"

The cameraman zoomed in on a Hero wearing a funky blue costume with fins flapping his arms about in a messed up version of the rain dance as water flew from the grounds and misted over the flames, bringing them down to size and density. Smoke still perforated the area, covering our view of the building from where the reporters stood, but slowly, eventually, the smoke dissipated, revealing bodies in work suit attire shuffling out from the inflamed buildings, escorted by another man in a black suit with lightning bolt designs littering the length of his Hero costume.

Hisoka situated his kid and I on his lap so we had a perfect view of the screen and what was happening just outside our homebody walls. The child innocently perpetuating stare watched the chaos come to a close, unblinking, unwavering, taking in the information but not understanding what it was conveying. Not like how I could see it.

Then, another explosion erupted on the other side of the building, and from that explosion came a body, flying from the debris and smoke and landing in a heap far away from the escaping civilians.

"Holy-" Hisoka started, but stopped himself before he could let a swear fly; like he usually did. He was good about not swearing in front of his kid; he was the ideal father most parents inspire to be, even if he didn't see it from his own perspective.

"Here we go sweety!" my father's voice rose with excitement as the action commenced. "Watch a real hero in action!"

A real hero?

Another person walked through the billowing wall of smoke. When the camera zoomed in on him we got a good look at his hero costume, a suit of red with buckles and small flame designs. He walked out from the hole he created on the side of the building and took off in a sprint toward the body that was now recovering from, what I would assume, being blown away by Incenory's Quirk that resulted in that harsh landing. The Hero didn't give him any reprieve before he was on him, taking him down with a knee to the face, and then a foot to the gut. When the presumed Villain fell on his back, the Hero took something out of his back large pocket that took up the expanse of his back, chains, and tied the Villain up, the fight only lasted maybe ten seconds, and in those ten seconds, Hisoka had his kids hands in his larger ones and acted out the fight while using his kid like a doll, making this kid's fists fly forward all the while making punching noises.

He was such a dork.

"Oh, wow, now that's what we call a professional Hero. No hesitation whatsoever. Wish we could have seen the fight inside. Incenory was always a hands-on, no questions asked, kind of Hero. Pretty awesome, right Veda?"

A prolonged dirty and nasty-wet fart ripped from the kid, followed closely by a long and sufferable pregnant pause.

Then Hisoka gagged, growing paler by the second when his eyes bugged out. "Oh God. Veda, sweety"-another gage-"please don't do this to daddy. Please wait till"-another gage, that one sounding wet-"hold it in until mommy gets home. Please, daddy's begging ya."

The kid completely decimated her diaper, putting to shame all other blown diapers in one fell swoop.

This was one of the rare cases where I was more than glad that I couldn't feel what was happening to this body inside my tunnel. All I could do was watch.

And watch I did.

Hisoka face contorted, turning red as he looked away and covered his mouth in hopes of not emptying his stomach all over the living room floor. His body lurched with each dry heave before he finally was able to take in large gulps of air through his wide open mouth.

"Okay, okay," he conceited, turning his watery eyes back to the two of us, "just stop-"

Another earth-shattering, deplorably heinous, fart-filled crap reverberated through the kids' butt, effectively turning Hisoka's face a pale green. He quickly stood up with the kid extended far away from him as he made his way to the bathroom. Once inside, he sat the kid in the sink before he ran to the toilet and dry heaved into it.

Yes, totally safe. No baby would crawl from the sink and NOT fall.

Apparently, Veda was that baby.

After a moment of almost hurling his lunch, Hisoka came back to the kid who sat quietly in the sink and stared at her with defeated, yet mildly disgusted, eyes. He sighed deeply, his face relaxing with the effort.

"Okay"-he reached forward-"Let's get this over with."

Another fart vibrated within the sink, along with the sounds of something squishing, and Hisoka found himself hunched over the toilet once again.

"No more peaches"-coughing, dry heave-"for you!"

Believe me, daddy, that wasn't caused by peaches. When Rose comes back home from work, you should ask her about those peas. I heard the kids tummy rumbling after she ate those green suckers.

After some more wet dry heaves and a now clean tushie, Hisoka was back on the couch, his head leaning back and was breathing heavy from the exertion of trying not to hurl the whole time he cleaned Veda's behind, with his arm draped over his sweaty forehead.

The kid and I sat on the ground, occasionally glancing up at our unusually quiet daddy as we continued our game of ABC blocks; trying to stack two on top of one another before they fell over. Our chubby fingers clasped over the blocks that were too large for just one hand, and very slowly, very shakingly, stacked them up on another block, but it fell over right when she let go, the block falling to the ground in a heap of defiance.

The kid's movement was slow, clumsy, and no thought behind it whatsoever.

I didn't think anything of it at the time.

"Never again," Hisoka mumbled disjointedly. "No more poop. No more. Gonna have nightmares for days. Poop . . . too much . . . gonna hurl thinking about it."

A phone vibrated off toward the kitchen, startling Hisoka from his self loathing. Hisoka slowly, very carefully, got up from his seat while running his hand down his distraught and sunken face in exasperation, and then sauntered slowly toward the kitchen.

"Hello?" Came Hisoka's nettled voice from the kitchen. The strain he put into trying not to gage could be heard clearly from where I sat.

"Hey, honey . . . no, no, I'm good, everything's a-okay . . . huh? . . . why not? . . . when will you be home? . . . okay, I'll have dinner ready when you get home. . . . Love you too . . . "

After a moment Hisoka came back into the living room looking a tad less green. He walked over toward me and sat down in front of us.

"Mommy's gonna be home later than usual tonight so no more explosions, okay?" He picked us up and held us over his head and continued with a soft, loving smile, "How does chicken caesar salad sound, Veda? Think mama would appreciate it?"

The child's answer was to hurl chunks of peaches into his face, effectively making him run into the bathroom and start the process of dry-heaving all over again.

Ah, the joys of having a baby . . .

Like how Hisoka had said, Rose didn't make it home till later. But when she walked through the front door in her office suit and high bun and into the living room to see Hisoka and the kid clapping to Yo Gabba Gabba, she was beaming with joy.

She laid her purse and jacket on the sofa and made her way to her husband first to give her usual kisses and greetings before making her way to us to give the ritual of kisses and hugs she does almost every evening when she arrives home from work.

"How was she today?" Rose asked like she always did. She held us in her arms when she turned back toward Hisoka, and the kid held onto her with a vice-like grip, no longer giving me a view other than her shoulder and a piece of chocolate I just then spotted on the couch.

I suddenly had a deep craving to taste that chocolate, and the kid reacted by squirming in her mother's grip.

"She - ah, had an accident in her - ah - diaper earlier," Hisoka admitted lamely, probably scratching the back of his head, right underneath his brown horns-that oddly enough, Veda's small horns that rounded around her small forehead, starting right before her temples and ending just past them by about an inch, were more of an ash gray-like he usually did when he sounded so sheepishly.

Not going to mention the puking incident, huh?

"And you cleaned her up!" Rose exclaimed with glee, even when I could hear the undertone of laughter in her voice. She walked over to him and we found ourselves squashed between the two parents as Rose rained small kisses over his lips and cheeks. "Did you puke again?" Her grip resituated us back on her hip when our squirming upped in determination to get to that piece of chocolate!

"Nope!" Hisoka popped the P with pride. "I held it in this time. Only gagged a little."

A lot, he meant.

"I'm so proud of you, Hisoka."

I was too, actually. He did puke the last couple of times he had to change the kid's diaper. It was a definite improvement.

"So does that mean you can change her diaper more often?"

"Not happening."

Rose only laughed in return and the Kid and I was once again smushed between the two married couple. I tried my best to ignore the kissing sounds above.

"So," Rose began once the two separated, "are you going to ask me why I came home late?"

Hisoka paused for only a moment but caught on to what Rose was asking. "Oh, yes, I was just about to ask," he lied easily. "Why did you come home late, honey? You said you had to go somewhere?"

"I did. I was at my doctor's."

"Your doctor's?" His tone was no longer light with playfulness but held a note of concern for his wife, his maroon eyes searching her hazels. Out of the corner of the kid's eye, I could see him lay a hand on Rose's opposite shoulder. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I'm fine. Everything is fine," Rose chirpily clarified, sounding as nonchalant as humanly possible. "Just pregnant again. That's all."

A pregnant pause clouded the room.

No pun intended.

This little declaration even had me utterly surprised.

Slowly, I willed the kid to look at the two parents standing stock still, my cravings momentarily subdued from the suddenly thickened tension in the air.

"Really?" Hisoka finally broke the silence, his voice oddly quiet.

"Yes. Really."

Rose and their kid were swept up into yet another hug, squishing us between the two bodies again. Hisoka leaned in and rained kisses over every inch of Rose's face as she giggled from the overwhelming affection. Then, he moved to his kid, and gave small kisses across her face, too.

I had to remind myself repeatedly that this was a happy moment, no need to make the baby cry from my mortification.

"This is great!" Hisoka exclaimed, his face beaming with a wide grin. "You're great!" he had to clarify for whatever reason. "You're perfect. Everything is perfect." He turned his beaming eyes on us. "You're gonna be a big sister, Veda." He ran his hand over the kid's head, and all he got in return, again, was a blinking, blank stare.

I should have noticed there something wasn't right, but I was too caught up in the moment to observe it.

Well, this was going to be interesting. I didn't know what to expect, like, at all.

In my world, being an orphan, you didn't have baby brothers or sister when you were put up for adoption alone, obviously. And when a kid or even a toddler or baby came into the picture, it wasn't long before they were adopted out before that bond could be created.

But I did wonder if my imagination would live up to real-world expectations. Growing up in my younger years, I did allow myself the pardon of dreaming unrealistic dreams without preamble, and one of those dreams consisted of me being a big or little sister. Would I be the protective big sister, or would I be the little sister and be protected by my older sibling?

Veda was going to be a big sister, and I was going to watch her grow into that role. It was like my own personal real-life sitcom, and, to tell the truth, I was looking forward to watching Veda grow up in this beautiful family. Veda had everything I ever wanted, and now she was allowing me to live that life through her eyes. I was grateful, in a way. It made me think my existence wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.

I was correct to think just that because, in actuality, my existence here was much worse than I could have had ever imagined.

Not so long after, as the weeks passed and the days repeated with Rose going off to work and Hisoka staying home for his kids' sake, Rose's stomach steadily grew.

And as her stomach grew with their unborn child, so did my concerns for Veda.

She should be talking now; showing characteristic emotions associated with being a toddler. But she was silent.

All was silent.

Didn't she have emotions I felt when I came to true conscious and she was still a newborn? I know I felt her emotions. They'd sometimes overtook my own. I remember feeling them.

But now all was silent.

It had to be my fault. There was no other correlation.

I was a parasite, after all.

A horrible parasite.

But I couldn't let my grief overcame me because when I allowed it, Veda would cry.

I needed to be strong for both our sakes and for the sake of Rose and Hisoka.

But, I wasn't alone in noticing Veda's vacant emotions and responses.

It was another day at the doctor's, and like the last visit, Rose spoke her concerns.

"She hasn't said a word or even attempted to talk. I just - I don't - I don't know what's going on."

The pediatrician took the kids vitals, checking her heart, her reflexes, and then her temperature. Veda obliged, allowing him to do everything without complaint; without feeling.

I willed myself to watch without feeling. At least, I tried. I was afraid my feelings would complicate this seemingly important appointment.

"She also lacks . . . emotions," Rose continued, her hesitance palpable. "The complicated ones, I mean."

The doctor sat down, picking up his clipboard to write everything down. "What do you mean by complicated emotions, Rose."

"She cries, of course, when something scares her. And she does feel pain and cries when she does too, but with everything else - she's so vacant. She plays with her toys like it's more of a chore than it being fun for her. It's like after she learned to sit up on her own, she'd stopped learning. When Hisoka or I give her attention, she just stares forward almost like she's just staring right through us; through me."

Tears sprang to her eyes then, but she dabbed them away from a tissue she grabbed in the waiting room.

"I don't know what to do," Rose continued shakingly, "I don't want to wait till it's too late if something is truly wrong with her."

"She's only 20 months old," the doctor interjected, drawling on, "hardly enough time for you to be concerned. There are some kids that learn at a slower pace than others. Veda is probably one of these kids."

"Are you saying Veda is slow?"

"No, of course not. She's still a toddler. Every child develops at their own rate. And with the added in Quirk phenomenon, that spectrum of learning significantly changes so much so that we, ourselves, are still learning, even to this day, the developmental phases of an infant child who has a quirk. It's like trying to compare oranges to apples, Mrs. Nasake. We do not have enough studies to confirm if the child is developing in a sense normal to her age group this early on. She may have a Quirk that's hindering her senses in a way we simply cannot predict until she's old enough to tell us differently."

Rose paused, processing the information slowly. "So," she started slowly, the creepy telltale of hysteria in the forefront of her voice that only I knew from the months of observing she was trying to control, "what you are saying is that she may have a Quirk that is causing her to act the way she is now. Am I missing something or isn't her horns her Quirk?"

Good question.

The doctor lifted his clipboard, reading through the information with a critical, trained eye. "Yes, she gets that from her father. My records show that Veda father side shows an adeptness to developing two Quirks: one being the horns, and the other usually being the other parents' Quirk, either a physical Quirk or otherwise. A rare phenomenon but not unheard of when it comes to mutant type Quirks like your husband's lineage."

Mutant . . . ?

Rose was silent again, her face giving way no emotion.

I wish they knew about me, then they'd know it was my fault Veda was the way she was, not because of a second Quirk or whatever.

All my fault.

I could scream, and Veda would scream, too. Would that make them notice me? Would putting Veda through my tormented matured emotions without regard to her mental health be the best choice of action in this situation?

I didn't know, and I couldn't make that decision on my own. I just couldn't.

Why do I even exist?

"Can't you test to see how many Quirks she has? I thought we had the capabilities to do that in today's medicine?" When Rose spoke evenly and calmly, showing no hint of emotion, I knew it was only a matter of time for the kettle to start whistling.

"Yes - and no. Veda is only twenty months old, for her Quirk to actually show up in results at such a young age is slim to none. Quirks genomes don't show in the system until they've started to mature, especially when it comes to emitter type Quirks"-Rose repeated the word 'emitter' with bitterness lacing her tone-"I wouldn't worry too much right now, Rose, and that's my professional opinion."

Rose stayed silent, her eyes obscured from her blonde bangs, but after a moment she slowly stood up and walked over to Veda. When she picked us up, I still couldn't see her face.

"Thank you for your time, doctor." Her voice was robotic; forced. "We'll be leaving now."

The doctor didn't pay any mind to her sudden passive-aggressive tone, or simply didn't notice.

"Take care, Rose. And don't worry so much, your daughter will be fine. I've seen similar cases such as your daughters and all of them turned out to be healthy children."

"Thank you," was Rose's only reply before she walked out of the office.

Driving home I watched Rose as she drove blankly while absentmindedly rubbing her growing stomach. When Veda looked away and at the flashing trees outside the window, I let my mind wander, trying to reel in my emotions as effectively as I could stop stealing Veda's.

I was a parasite feeding off Veda's emotions. There was no other explanation.

I actually thought it wasn't too late.

I was horribly wrong.

"I don't know what to do, Hisoka. She won't talk, and when she looks to me it's like she's looking straight through me. Like she's blind, but actually isn't!"

Rose fussed after a week of silence. After the doctor's appointment, she became uncharacteristically quiet, especially around Hisoka, but she still continued to be a loving mother, not letting her grievance get in the way of her motherhood.

She'd even told Veda and me that no matter what, she would always love us.

That hurt me more than it should.

"I don't know what to say," Hisoka quietly conceded, scratching the back of his head as he held Veda and me in his lap on top of the living room couch. Rose paced back and forth in front of us, her arms crossed and her brows knitted in irritation.

"We can't really do anything about it," Hisoka reasoned, returning his hand back to hold Veda in place, even though it wasn't needed. Veda watched the little spectacle with her usual wide, open eyes. Soaking everything in but feeling nothing in return.

All the while I stayed inside my subconscious tunnel and watched through the eyes of this child with my own emotions churning in distress.

Just reign it in. I needed to stay calm and let Veda filter her own emotions. Maybe her brain wired itself to believe I was the main host of emotions and forethinking . . .

I didn't know!

Why do I exist!?

"She's only twenty months old like the pediatrician said-"

"He isn't right!" Rose interrupted, her voice booming over Hisoka's. Her wild eyes now trained on Hisoka's, pleading with him to understand within the depths of her churning irritation. "He isn't the mother of Veda, I am! He's only basing his observation off of some false pretenses he doesn't even fully understand." She started to pace again. "He'd even admitted that he couldn't fully understand the nature of Quirks at such a young age, right to my face, and then had the gall to tell me to my face, again, that I shouldn't worry. Well, guess what? I'm freaking out!"

"Yeah, I can see that . . . " Hisoka mumbled under his breath.

"What if-" she stopped pacing and paused in her tyrant. She wasn't facing us directly, but when she covered her mouth with both her hands, her clear distress was evident, even from my vantage point below. "What if she won't be able to lead a normal life - be normal, Hisoka?" Her voice quivered. I couldn't feel it, but I knew Hisoka's grip tightened around Veda by the way he suddenly grew deathly quiet. "What if she stays like this? This . . . this shell of what could have been if she didn't have me as a mother!"

"Rose!" Hisoka's voice now boomed. Veda's vision shifted up and then down when she was sat back onto the couch, no longer in Hisoka's lap. "Enough already!" Hisoka continued as he stood in front of Rose, his arms enclosed around her quivering shoulders.

"I'm not going to stand here and listen to you putting yourself down!" He tightened his arms around her, then nuzzled his nose into the side of her long blonde hair. "Even if you're right and Veda has that Quirk I know you're scared she may have, we'll work through it; find a way to get through to her. But we can't give up. She'll be okay. I know it. Just trust her. Trust in us, Rose. We can do this."

Rose buried her head into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around Hisoka in return. "I'm just so scared, Hisoka. I don't want my child to live the same life as my grandma. I don't want that for her."

As they cried and comforted one another, Veda continued to stare at them, unblinking, unknowingly crushing my very soul.

Everything was my fault.

I wanted to fix this.

I wanted to disappear.

Forever . . .

If I disappeared, everything will be okay. Everything will be fixed.

As the days continued to pass, the more unresponsive Veda grew. I tried my best to reign in everything that was me, trying to allow Veda be who she was meant to be, but it was a losing battle.

It came to the point that the doctors had to step in. They ran tests, simulations, everything you could possibly think of, but the results all came back the same: Veda was a normal, healthy child. Even MRIs came back normal, surprisingly, showing a healthy developing, adolescent brain.

It all didn't make sense.

It was all impossible.

So, I continued to recede back as far as I possibly could inside Veda's subconscious, until one day everything went to hell.

The morning started out like any other morning: Rose came into our room singing my little sunshine like she'd done every morning. I'd be fully awake and she'd walk over to my crib, and when she'd reach for us, Veda would just look at her and a pained look would cross Rose face before she'd reach into the crib and grab Veda. She'd then tell me that she would always love me and she would never give up on me, and then we'd go into the kitchen where Veda and I are usually served sliced bananas and apples.

And with each passing day, Veda being able to simply grab the food and shove it into her mouth became less of a thing.

This morning was no exception. Veda only looked at her food, not even attempting to eat it even when her tummy grumbled in protest.

Rose noticed instantly.

"What's wrong, baby girl?" Rose asked softly as she approached us. She tapped the baby chair tabletop with her finger. "Are you not hungry?" Her question was instantly answered when she heard Veda's tummy rumble in return.

"Come on, Veda. Eat for mommy?" Rose grabbed a piece of apple and placed it inside one of Veda's chubby little toddler fingers. Veda looked down at the piece of fruit, then back up at Rose, unmoving, unblinking.

"Do you not like apple, Veda?" Rose voice quivered when she asked the question, smiling through as she closed her eyes to stem the tears prickling the corner of her eyes.

She was trying so hard to be strong.

She replaced the apple with a banana slice and slowly coaxed Veda's hand to her mouth, pushing the forearm with her hand.

When she let her arm go, Veda's hand dropped. Veda didn't even look at the banana slice but only continued to stare at the mother.

Tears began to run down Rose's cheeks, no longer able to bear them as I watched her world crumble, again, watching her motionless daughter unable to do the most basic of things.

"Oh Veda, it's okay . . . it's okay," her voice broke, quivering along with the tears flowing down her cheeks.

Rose sniffled, and then let out a small whine. She covered her eyes with her right hand and let out a slow, quivering breath. Tilting her head back she breathed in, trying to collect herself for Veda's sake.

But she failed.

And all I could do was watch.

I couldn't do anything else BUT watch!

Another soft whine fell from her lips, and when she breathed in, she let out a louder cry. With each breath, she grew louder and louder till she was full out balling, her broken cries echoing in the small kitchen that had my non-physical heart breaking.

Everything was my fault.

I shouldn't be there.

Completely useless.

What was the point of me existing like this?

Crawling further and further into myself I didn't notice that the images before me growing farther away, my conscious falling back into my tunnel until my world began to blink out. All I could see was a light at the end of my tunnel, and as it blinked at me, flickering as it tried to stay alight, I willed it to die, and my world finally grown dark, gifting me with my wish to finally disappear.

It all happened in an instant. One moment my world was utter darkness, unable to see, hear, or feel a thing, and the next . . .

"Veda! Veda! Oh god please wake up baby!"

What happened? Why wasn't Veda waking up? Where were we?

What was going on!?

"Is she up yet?" Hisoka's voice shouted somewhere in front of us, his voice clearly panicked.

"N-no! She won't - she stopped - oh God! Hurry up Hisoka!"

Honking was soon followed as well as Hisoka's swearing.

But Veda's eyes still did not open, didn't even blink.

"Oh God please, please let her be okay. Let her be okay!" Rose chanted, over and over again.

Still, Veda didn't budge.

I waited, listening to the frantic cries of Rose as she tried to elicit any response from Veda, and to Hisoka as he drove and cursed in his panic.

I waited . . .

And waited . . .

And waited . . .

"Please . . . Please don't take her from me . . ."

And with that final prayer, I plunged forward, all restraint and forethought forgotten. Searching, trying to feel for Rose's warmth I'd felt when Veda was still a baby and was able to feel her own emotions, but when I didn't feel anything, not even a gentle caress of a fluttering warmth, I lunged forward, even more, plunging my subconscious as far as my will would allow without caution or constraint. Farther than I ever had gone before, my panic overriding my reasoning before, once again, everything grew dark.

But I could still hear.

Panic gasps . . .

Crying . . .

More cursing . . .

A gentle, yet foreign caress of fingers across my forehead . . .

"Oh, shit!"

* * *

 **Author's Note: Wanted to thank** _Deluxemclovin, 9thDimen,_ **and** _sk2dydid_ **for reviewing in the last chapter!**

 **Total reviews: 8**

 **Total follows: 60**

 **Total favorites: 29**

Tumblr: Quidell


	4. Unraveling

_**Word count: 4,261**_

 _ **Published: March 28th, 2017**_

 _ **Edited: N/A**_

 _ **Edited By: N/A**_

 **Notes: I changed "Ella's" name to "Lillith" around August 2018.**

* * *

 **Unraveling**

* * *

 _There was so much blood._

 _I knew what was happening, what this all meant. But witnessing it, first hand, had my heart racing, churning in turmoil and creeping despair as I stared at the motionless form of Rose lying on the bathroom floor, blood pooling at and around her waist._

 _I couldn't do_ anything. _There was nothing anyone could do. It was too late._

 _All of it was too late._

 _So many thoughts churning, assaulting my state of mind in an overflowing torrent of doubts and disbelief. The sight overwhelmed my already frazzled senses, and because of my already weakened constitution to the life-altering and defining events that took place in my world alone, it all bubbled over the edge, cresting then crashing down to burn at its lowest point within my mind._

 _I did not break. Not yet. Burn stains can easily mend. However, it took a lot of effort to erase all indication of a burn from a polished surface, and sometimes, only sometimes, it'd leave residue behind._

Damn it . . .

 _Little hands fisted at my sides, quivering with the extent of my frustration and fear, creasing in a way too experienced for a child that was my physical age preamble with a mind cultivated from years of practicality._

Could anything ever go right for Hisoka and Rose?

 _My voice rang out, crying for help; crying for Rose, crying for this family that deserved so much more than what was given and taken from them._

Why?

 _I screamed until Hisoka came running over from cooking in the kitchen and witnessed the scene that had me in a fit of worming distress._

 _His wide-eyed hesitation only lasted a moment before he scooped me up in his arms and ran over to Rose's unconscious body. There, he kneeled in her blood, cupping her cold cheek with hard-set eyes to see if she was still breathing, but when he saw her take a shallow breath, he got up and left her, taking me away from the scene within the bathroom and over to his cell in the living room placed atop the end table near the couch._

 _He was shaking when he dialed with his free hand. "H-hello yes, I need an ambulance sent to the address 509 east Evans street." He walked us around the couch and sat me down in the middle. "Stay here sweetie; I'll be right back. Mama's okay, I promise." He gave me one last parting smile before he ran back to the bathroom down the hall, back to Rose's unconscious body as he spoke to the responder on the phone as calmly and as coolly as he could manage._

 _I couldn't help but ask why any of this was happening, what did they do to deserve any of this. But, as usual, my questions fell on deaf ears._

 _But I knew it wasn't okay._

 _Miscarriages are a mother's worst nightmare when carrying their child._

 _My little hand fisted the fabric of the sundress over my chest, pain in every sense of the word radiated so deep within my heart I thought my world would finally stop._

 **Present**

Everything hit me with an intensity of an earthquake. The noises around me sounded too close and too near, shaking me to my very core in an unfamiliar acuteness I couldn't even begin to describe, but intimately distracting me from the bigger picture at hand. This body - I could _feel_ it seize up when my senses overwhelmed with adrenalized fear; I could feel when a softness like no other nimble its way across my forehead, bringing with it a freezing warmth that was oh-so-familiar and yet alien when it touched and seeped into skin I should never have had the comfort of familiarizing.

It was all too much, too overwhelming.

"Oh, shit!"

"What the hell!?"

Tires squealed, this body lurched with the movement.

All of this should be impossible!

"Did she just," Hisoka voice filtered through the turmoil of thoughts, twisting and agitating everything rational and true, "did she just speak!?"

Oh god. I did it. They heard me! I had to fix this.

Don't move! Don't say anything more! I needed to fix this.

Go back.

Go back inside my tunnel.

Please.

Veda . . .

"Veda? S-sweety?"

Rose?

She was touching this cheek, stroking it with trembling, terrified fingers.

Cold-warmth seeped into that cheek. Still so unfamiliar, and yet very much so.

"Veda? Baby girl? You there? Speak to me, baby girl. Please . . . speak to me . . ."

 _I can't. Please. You don't understand. You don't know what you're doing._

Please. Go back!

Go!

Back!

I willed it. Willed my spirit to go back.

But . . .

No more darkness.

And then I finally understood.

Cold rationalized comprehension finally had taken root inside my whirlwind of a mind, bringing everything with it to a screeching halt as my mind awakened in full understanding of my miscue of a decision.

And with that understanding came an established sense of cold composure that willingly shocked a perception of a reality I was unwittingly faced with.

Freaking out would not help in this very crucial moment, and showing my inner turmoil for the world to see would only bring more confusion and disorder in a world I was never prepared, or even willing, to partake in.

Take deep breaths, Lill. You can get through this. Do not worry about the what-ifs just yet. Focus on the now and worry when you hit the eye of the storm; that moment of peace where you can think without the outside world pulling at your drawstrings.

But, I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that I had to decide on something fast. The world outside wouldn't wait on my indecisiveness; it would take any chance it got to seize the opportunity to take more from me than what I was willing to give, and it already had taken so much that I couldn't let myself falter when I was already too far ahead of myself in this unfamiliar, nameless game.

Hearing movement, I felt a larger hand touch the top of this head, running deft and long fingers through the fine hairs with intricate care, almost like Hisoka feared there was a possibility of him hurting me if he dared try to rouse this body in any other way.

My emotions overwhelmed my reasoning, gripping me with fear and a small unknown chorus of hope that it choked me into making a sound; stifling a sob from my constricting throat.

 _Calm, deep breathes, Lill. There's nothing you can do to change what has already come to past. Focus on the present. Focus on the now._

I took that deep breath, my lungs filling to capacity until I let it out in a stream of calming air, and the fog of worry and self-doubt slowly dissipated to only a simmer of self preservation.

For this one moment, I can do this.

Opening my eyes, I was momentarily blinded by the light on the ceiling of the dark blue minivan we were in, resulting in myself blinking my eyes rapidly to regain my sight, but when I opened them again, I found myself staring up into familiar hazel eyes laced with the fear and hope that pounded through my very blood.

"Veda? Sweety?" she whispered, both of her eyes gliding between my own, looking for an answer I didn't want to give, giving me a moment's panic of what she was seeing within their very depths.

Will she see me for who I was?

But that fear soon morphed into shock when she suddenly smiled, tears trickling down her cheeks abonament of fear.

My decision was made.

 _I'm not Veda . . ._

"Mama?"

 _My name is Lilith, or Lill for short . . ._

And a warmth that was exceedingly familiar overtook all my senses.

"She spoke."

 _And I'm a 25-year-old woman born within the body of your little girl._

My eyes pivoted over to Hisoka who was looking over the delicate curve of Rose's shoulder, his face that usually radiated joy and happiness now set in rigid hard lines with blatant worry etched into his matching maroon eyes, and similar to Rose's, combed the very recesses of my own; searching, waiting.

"Dada?" I whimpered, my heart breaking.

 _I don't know where Veda is, where you're little girl went._

Dammit. Pull yourself together, Lill!

"Oh, Veda!" Rose mewled, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "My baby girl . . . my sweet little girl . . ." She wiped her tears away, trying to smile through the distressing relief of hearing her child speak for the first time. Something she'd probably thought she would never have had the pleasure of hearing.

 _But . . ._

This hurt, so much. The joy that radiated down from these two wonderful people unknowingly believing that all of their love and affection focused on their one true child had my heart plummeting in a cavity of acute desolation; shadowing a frost of numbness in its place.

I needed time to process everything. My thoughts were aimless, my focus dwindling by the second in a disorderly way of thinking. Maybe if I had time to focus, to look deep within myself without the tyrant of emotions and ideations, I could reverse this.

 _. . . I will find her._

But for now I needed to focus on the present.

Focus, Lill!

 _No matter the cost._

With understandable precaution, I was still transported to the hospital. Rose held me in her arms the whole ride there, not once did she stop coddling me, like she was afraid I-Veda-would revert back. Listening as she spoke, I held my tongue and answered with simple, one worded answers in both fear that my fabricated semblance of a child would be discovered before I had time to process everything and come up with a proper game plan while my mind held the desired harmony that, at this moment, couldn't come close to grasping.

Thankfully, I didn't have to act for long before we made it to the hospital and I was rushed inside.

The doctors ran their tests, but the result had come back with the same chilling conclusion it had always come back with in the past: the mind - the brain of this body - was developing normally for its age group. Other tests were performed, of course, but I didn't care to listen for the results. When I was asked questions from the doctors, nurses, and even Hisoka and Rose while they examined this body, I kept my answers light, simple, straightforward, and completely uninvolved to what was happening around me.

I didn't know if I was doing more harm than good acting the way I did; acting as if I had no idea what they were talking about.

And when I was finally asked by Rose what I remembered prior to the car ride, I shrugged my shoulders and replied, "Eating apples." And when she asked why I was always quiet and never replied to mommy when she had spoken to me, I only shrugged my shoulders, again, and said, "I dunno."

I found myself saying "I dunno" a lot that night.

 _What the hell am I supposed to say to all this?_

As the night wore on, Rose and Hisoka continued to give me worried looks when they didn't think I was looking. But the thing is, I was always looking.

Always watching.

Being stuck on the precipice of Veda's subconscious with no way of communicating with the outside world made me into a "good watcher".

Heh, didn't I like to lie to myself.

And then, my quiet time I so desperately wanted finally had come to pass, but finding myself sandwiched between two grown people atop a creaky queen-size bed wasn't the most fortuitous location nor predicament I wanted to find myself in as I thought my life-altering crisis through. But, it wasn't the most unusual situation I ever have had the pleasure of finding myself in when faced with a dilemma. I did grow up moving from one foster home to the next, after all. When faced with new faces with what felt like each and every year, along with unusual sleeping arrangements, unusual circumstances became an everyday occurance.

They were afraid to leave me alone, that I'd revert back to Veda's former, desolate, _maddening_ shell.

The truth is, I was in total agreement with them. If Veda was not able to control this body with a healthy grasp, would it be wise to let her steer the reigns of this body again?

Was I being selfish for even thinking such thoughts? I felt so out of control of my emotions. Nothing made sense. I was in a predicament I couldn't control; couldn't even comprehend and I felt like the world around me was pulling at my strings in a way that would make them snap. And if they snapped, what then?

I pushed those thoughts aside. Unwilling to face them just yet. I needed to get a grip.

Right then, without outside stimulant to distract me, I could finally take in my surroundings, tuning in sounds that no longer sound muffled while in my tunnel - like Rose's light snoring, or the feeling of sheets beneath my uncalloused fingers; or the smells of a room lightly sprayed with Febreze every morning, or…

Like the light trickle of water slipping down my chubby cheeks.

These senses, after being deprived for so long, was too much; was too little. Overwhelming; underwhelming. The destitute I had to endure while stuck in my tunnel, I never realized, or I had simply forgotten, what it meant to just _feel_. To be, well, human.

To be _me._

And now that I had a taste of something I seemingly had forgotten, I never wanted to misrecollect those memories ever again. That would mean I could not return to that tunnel without forgetting again. Or worse yet, that I couldn't forget.

To do so now would be torture.

Thinking of even being in there had another torrent of tears falling down my cheeks.

And realizing now, I never wanted to return to that previous state of utter desolation, but with these thoughts also came a tremendous flux of guilt and shame.

My mind kept returning to one thought every time it wandered too far off from the main reasoning behind all this madness: what about Veda?

I needed to focus. I needed to stop being so self-absorbed and concentrate on the one thing that was holding my sanity in place. This was her life, not mine. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact. I was only a parasite. Nothing more, nothing less.

Taking in a deep breath, I calmed my nerves and closed my eyes. The tears on my face dried as I worked to calm my overexerted heart.

From there, I did a sort of meditation, digging deep within myself to find that warmth I always used to feel within my tunnel that I slowly associated over time to be Veda's spirit.

Deeper and deeper I went until I could no longer feel the warmth of the comforter I lied under, or from the two caring parents that comforted me on either side. I couldn't even hear the light snoring from Rose as I plunged into darkness and found…

Nothing.

And then I realized that I didn't actually "plunge" within myself, because when I felt nothing, I was able to open my eyes instantly, my senses coming back to me.

I didn't return to my tunnel. Relief was the first emotion I felt, and that was quickly replaced with disgust. I was selfish. So selfish.

So, I tried again.

And again.

And again.

I couldn't even see the opening of that tunnel; to feel it.

It was like it never even existed.

And at that moment, I remembered a life before. A life where my emotions didn't twist in a way that had me bent out of shape. Where everything was simple; perceived in black and white. That way of thinking wasn't healthy, wasn't normal, someone had told me. But at that moment - at that lowest point in my life - I wanted to revert back to that way of thinking. Where everything in my life was simple again.

Where I thought _everything_ made sense.

Again, tears began streaming down my face and it made me irritated that I couldn't control them. With a little huff, I wiped them away, but in doing so, I felt Hisoka shift to my left and an arm wrapping around my little frame.

I looked at him mortified at the contact.

This was NOT the time!

"Veda, sweetie, everything okay?" his groggy voice broke through the silence, but when I turned my head enough to see his face, I saw he didn't have his eyes all the way open to see my horrified expression.

Rose continued her light snoring with no indication that she even heard Hisoka's whispered question, something I was grateful for.

Closing my eyes just in case he happened to crack an eye open and see the horrified expression I could not control, I replied with: "Uh-huh." Nothing more, nothing less.

"Are you sure, baby girl?"

"Uh-huh."

"Did you have a nightmare?"

"No."

Enough with the twenty questions already.

"Then why are you crying, baby girl?"

Calloused fingertips grazed over my plump cheekbone before he flattened his palm over it. Tears continued to stream down his hand, but I refused to look at him in fear of what he may see now that I was at my most vulnerable.

I was okay. Really. I was only having a hard time controlling these damned tears.

They wouldn't stop.

Slowly, hands glided under my armpits, and before I knew what was happening, I'd let out a small squeal when I was suddenly lifted up and cradled against Hisoka's chest, forcing my eyes open to see what the heck he was doing. He moved across the room, taking extra care not to make too much noise as he moved out into the hallway, leaving the door cracked as he turned on the hallway light. From there, he positioned me over his hip and walked down the hallway to the kitchen.

"How does warm milk sound, baby girl?"

Milk! Milk sounded devine!

More than devine!

Damn, why did that sound too good? So good, it was the only thing I could concentrate on.

"Yes!" I chirped a little too quickly.

Hisoka smiled as he placed me on the counter near the fridge on the right-side corner of the rather large, cottage-style kitchen. His Punisher shirt and hip hugging pajama bottoms on full display as he made sure I had a firm grip on the wooden countertop.

In the back of my mind, I still wondered about his Punisher shirts I see him wear from time to time. Never had I seen a comic book lying around to tell me if it even existed on that context in this world, or any other media that would tell me otherwise. But considering how Barney exists, there was a safe assumption that Punisher existed, too.

Which begs the question if this **is** my world, only an alternate reality of it.

I'd asked myself this too much, I felt like a record on a constant loop. But that thought process was not important at the moment. I was simply distracting myself, and I couldn't do that for Veda's sake.

"Don't jump down, okay? Let me get you some milk, okay?"

I nodded my head vigorously. Even if I did jump down, it would be rather painful. At the hospital, I tried to get up out of my seat and ended up landing on my face, much to Hisoka's and Rose's mortification.

These little legs of mine had no muscle mass. It shouldn't have had come as a surprise for me. Attempting to move was a faulty decision - something I was consciously aware of and could have easily avoided - should have had made me wiser in that regard, but I didn't beat myself up too much over it. My mind hadn't been in the right place at the time. On the contrary, I was playing in the left field without any foreknowledge of what game I was even partaking in.

And, of course, leave it up to Hisoka to leave his daughter unattended as he rummaged through the fridge, sitting at the edge of a counter any toddler would nosedive off of.

He meant well, I knew that. But he had no common sense with kids. None whatsoever. For a new parent, you'd think he'd be more overprotective like in those commercials where it compares a mom's first child of sanitizing the babas in hot water versus the second child where she cleans it by putting it in her mouth after the kid drops it to get the dirt off.

Despite that little flaw of his, he was still a good father. I may not have had a lot of experience growing up as a normal kid living in a normal household, but I knew Rose and Hisoka were doing a wonderful job.

On the contrary, I use to imagine what it would be like growing up with a real family, and this was exactly how I imagined it.

It didn't take him long to pull out a jug of whole milk where he proceeded to pour some in a sippy cup while humming the Barney song.

Cue an internal, suffering sigh.

After heating the milk in the microwave, he picked me up and brought me out into the living room. From there he sat me on their large couch and kneeled down in front of me, crossing his arms and laying his head on his arms as he watched me drink.

And quite frankly, at that moment, I didn't give a damn how creepy he was being. This warm milk tasted way too good!

Ignoring Hisoka, I tipped the sippy cup back and took one long drag of the warm, sultry liquid. Pretty sure I may have groaned as I drained it in a matter of seconds as the warm and delicious liquid poured down my throat and tickled my taste buds with its creamy and smooth texture.

This milk was made for Gods!

It didn't take me long to finish the bottle, momentarily distracting me from my earlier dilemma, and when I finished, I had my eyes closed to bask in the beautiful, pure, creamy delight that was warm whole milk.

In my other life, I hated the taste of warm milk. It had to be cold, no exception.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw Hisoka in the same position, eyes alight with something I wasn't familiar with and a small smile lifting his generous lips.

I thrust the Barney sippy cup at him, my eye set in determination. "More!"

Hisoka's smile grew. "Anything for you, babycakes."

I blinked. That was easy. Too easy.

He took the sippy cup and made his way back to the kitchen - leaving me alone again, might I add. It didn't take him long to come back, smile still in place when he handed me the full sippy cup, making sure I had a firm grasp on it before letting it go.

The tip was instantly in my mouth, not caring how that sounded in my head in the least as I sucked like there was no tomorrow.

It just tasted so good!

Ignoring the strange rumbling that began to intensify with each pull I took of the creamy substance, I easily drained this sippy cup just like the last.

"You sure are hungry, huh sweety?"

Nope. Wasn't hungry in the least, actually.

When I finished I let out a contented sigh before handing Hisoka the sippy cup. He grabbed it and place it on the floor near where he was leaning then crossed his arms again to watch me, a smile still lifting the corners of his mouth, reaching his eyes.

I stared back at him, shifting uncomfortably as his smile didn't wane as we simply stared at one another. Uncomfortably so.

I looked away first, however, when his penetrating eyes became too much.

However, it didn't occur to me that I was thoroughly distracted to the point of giving me a much-needed reprieve I so desperately needed.

"Do you want to go back to bed, baby girl?"

Knowing him, he wanted to stay up longer to be a creeper, but he knew I was most likely exhausted too from the days' events. He wasn't wrong. And him asking me was very considerate of him.

Nodding my head after I considered my options of staying up with him creeping on me, or go to bed and actually try to rest before doing more searching for Veda, I decided on the latter. Hisoka smiled and reached for me, picking me up by the armpits and, just as suddenly, twirling me around above him, smiling wide.

"You're so perfect, you know that baby girl?"

My face paled, finding this to be extremely inappropriate but also remembering that I was only a toddler and this was, indeed, appropriate. Taking that into consideration, I kept my mouth shut, but in that moment of contemplation (and me most likely making a constipated face as I fought with myself), my stomach decided to make the most heinous noise that had both of our faces gaping in horror before, just as suddenly, the contents of my stomach landed on Hisoka's face, effectively shutting him up and putting a stop to the sudden in/appropriate twirling.

* * *

 **Author's note: Oh my.**

 **Where to begin . . .**

 **I'm back?**

 **This chapter is suppose to be twice as long, but I split it up. Why? Because the second half isn't edited correctly and I really want to let you guys know I'm still here.**

 **Why was I gone for SO freakin' long?**

 **Long story. Around the time my last chapter was published, someone stole my dog. Not going to go into details, but I didn't get him back until a month later and in not the best condition. That, alone, put me in DEEP depression.**

 **But, everything is good now! Hes healthy. Happy. I'm healthy. Happy. Etc.**

 **My next chapter, once it is edited, will have a little bit of a lengthier author's note. Just know that this chapter was meant to be MUCH longer with more things, important things, happening in it. It was also suppose to end Veda's "Toddler" faze, too.**


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